Date: 4/26/25 9:18 am From: Diane Hichwa via groups.io <dhichwa...> Subject: Re: [Mendobirds] 23 April 2025 Brown Pelican in Talmage - Brown Pelican Event?
Urgent Update: Starving Brown Pelicans
Turning up Across California
Over 100 young Brown Pelicans have been admitted with starvation concerns to International Bird Rescue’s two California wildlife centers over the past month.
The first wave of struggling birds began arriving at Bird Rescue’s Los Angeles Wildlife Center, where more than 70 have been brought into care. Now, the San Francisco Bay-Delta Wildlife Center is seeing the same troubling trend, with 45 young pelicans admitted, marking this as a statewide issue for the iconic coastal species. Learn more in our recent blog post.
Interestingly the N CA pelis have not shown domoic acid to be the cause.
We do know the juv peli picked up from Sea Ranch bluff trail Sunday evening did go to Santa Rosa Bird Rescue, then on to International Bird Rescue thanks to the help of Shari Goforth.
Diane Hichwa
Email: <dhichwa...>
Telephone: 707-785-1922 (Sea Ranch)
707-483-3130 (cell)
More Tail Wagging!!! Less Barking!!
Millie 2007
From: <Mendobirds...> on behalf of "Tim Bray via groups.io" <tbray...>
Reply-To: <tbray...>
Date: Thursday, April 24, 2025 at 9:19 AM
To: <davebengston...>, Mendobirds <mendobirds...>
Subject: Re: [Mendobirds] 23 April 2025 Brown Pelican in Talmage - Brown Pelican Event?
Resent-From: <tbray...>
Resent-Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2025 09:19:32 -0700
I suspect Domoic Acid influence. As you probably know, there is a massive domoic acid outbreak along the southern and central California coast affecting everything from seabirds to whales. One of the effects of domoic acid toxicosis is loss of directional sense, so affected animals wander far from their habitats. Other effects lead to malnutrition. Brown Pelicans in SoCal have been hard-hit by this outbreak.
On 4/23/2025 9:07 PM, Dave Bengston via groups.io wrote:
By now some of you probably saw on ebird the report of a Brown Pelican in Talmage. Susan Era found one in her yard yesterday in Talmage and it stayed overnight. It seemed to be basically ok, but weakened and it might have been favoring one wing. It was a very young bird, probably first year. She called Santa Rosa Bird Rescue in Santa Rosa and Tim Knudsen picked it up today and took it down there. SR Bird Rescue called Susan to report on the bird. They transported it to another bird rescue further south and it had not been evaluated yet. But she did say that a "Brown Pelican Event" was occuring. I heard that 7 had previously been found in the Bay Area. Susan's wife had gotten this information.
So, it sounds kind of like the situation a few years back when young pelicans were searching all over for food and coming inland all over northern California. So, folks might keep a look out even in inland areas for more pelicans.
